One of the things a lot writers have to do is jump outside the known, into the stark cold reality of “making shit up” and not just making it, making it up and making it sound good. If you’ve never left the southern tip of Miami, or live on a beach in Panama, you probably haven’t spent much time in the cold and snow. One of the wonderful things about snow is that it doesn’t merely fall from the sky and stay on the ground. It blows.

Trying to make it through the snow, on the ground is only part of it. It reflects light. It changes the shape of things, it can make it impossible to tell how far you are from something.

It can make landmarks you pass every day much harder to make out.

Even without the differences of night and day, the changes can be dramatic.

The boundaries of land, sea and air can get a little blurry.

If you missed it earlier, Irene Radford’s newest book is available. Go get a copy, and wrap thyself around it.

Marshall Ryan Maresca

Indeed, snow does all those things. Key reason why I moved from the lake effect capital to Texas.